Midsummer’s Eve 2011

“If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber’d here While these visions did appear.”

Puck, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare)

The season of flowers and growing gardens, the magical late summer twilight, and the celebration of the imagination are our inspirations for celebrating Midsummer’s Eve every year at Hummingbird House. Usually we celebrate it a day or two after the summer solstice, but we postponed our festivities at the last moment this year because our schedule was so bustling last week. One of these years I hope to turn it into a playdate event for Katie and Eric’s playmates and friends—but this requires getting my act together much more in advance than I normally do at this time of year! I think I will make it a goal for next year, because it would be so much fun to see all the little fairies and sparrowmen running around and eating fairy cakes together! Fortunately, I was able to get some ideas for crafts and such from the fairy festival we went to this year, so turning it into a craft-and-play-date with friends would be easier next year.

Getting ready to decorate the miniature fairy cakes. Legend has it that fairies come to eat the leftover cakes, so they need to be tiny…

Eric’s first Midsummer’s Eve (I have pixie dust in my hair, by the way)

Decorating the fairy cakes—Katie chose pink icing this year!

Fairy cakes

Drinking syllabub, the drink of the fairies. We make ours with sparkling apple-grape cider and heavy whipped cream. Delicious!

Fairy cakes, candles, syllabub, flowers, a fairy terrarium, and the fairy house we made…Come on, fairies, you know you want to stop by tonight to play here!

Celebrating summer…and imagination…and magic…

Katie sprinkled pixie dust (glitter) all over the yard. She LOVED that. We hope the pixie dust attracts the fairies to our house tonight when it glistens in the moonlight.

Katie made a fairy lake in the grass out of water, flowers, and pixie dust. If I were a fairy, I would SO want to play in there, wouldn’t you?

Eric loved the fairy cakes! We make ours with both vanilla and almond extracts, so they are taste like tiny almond cakes.